Help with Unforeseen Medical Expenses

Hello,

My name is Nicole Larkin and this story starts in August of 2017. My mom Barb Stanczyk was diagnosed with lung cancer that had spread to several parts of her body. After chemo, radiation, medications, and the grace of god her cancer has been decided it is in a controllable state. Although she is not cancer-free, she has been pulled off of all chemo and radiation because it was taking too much of a toll on her physical condition when we were not seeing any changes in the size of the cancer left. She also suffers from COPD and is on oxygen full-time now.

My mom has lived with several different family members over the course of the last 4 years, however has found home here in Plainfield with her sister, Diana. Together, they have gotten through some of the more recent medical issues my mom has experienced.

This past year, my mom started having issues with her eyes. Partial blindness, pressure behind her eyes, headaches, discomfort, and pain led them to seek medical attention. We found out my mom had experienced a stroke behind her eyes which caused damage in her right eye that was severe. The doctors decided having specialty cataract surgery was the best course of action to solve her problem. The surgery took place and it seemed as if her eye was not getting any better, if anything it was getting worse. Fast forward several months of specialists visits, oncologist visits, testing, ultrasounds, etc; we found out she now had a tumor in her eye that seemed to be getting larger. The doctors ran tests and took imaging to determine the severity of this tumor and the results were that it was growing in depth instead of diameter and they were concerned that if they did not operate, the tumor would spread to her brain.

On February 25th, my mom had an emergency surgery on her right eye, having it completely removed and in 6-8 weeks she will have a glass eye put in. She is doing amazingly well and is very high-spirited which is great, but she has a long road ahead of her.

Now to the important part and reason for this fundraiser. My aunt Diana is my moms primary care-taker. When Covid-19 hit, my aunt was let go of her company and has since taken a toll on their financial situation. After all the expenses of what insurance did not cover to take care of my moms eye, my aunt made the decision to go back to work a few days a week as a server because they needed the extra money to pay the bills. After these 2 surgeries and general costs for things to take care of my mom, she has found herself fighting to pick up shifts just to stay afloat.

My family and I have never asked anyone for help and don’t like to, however their financial state is nowhere near what it needs to be to just simply get by. If you can, please consider donating even if it isn't much, we appreciate every penny.

Thank you,

Nicole & Family.